On the heels of last year’s partnership between eBay and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), designed to create opportunities for blind entrepreneurs, eBay and the NFB have completed a landmark, joint training session. Sixteen members of the blind community, chosen on the basis of business ideas they submitted, visited NFB headquarters in Baltimore, Md. at the end of February and received intensive seller training over the course of four days.
Jonas Klink, eBay’s Senior Product Manager of Accessibility, joined eBay education specialists and experts from the NFB at the event to oversee the curriculum. Several of the 16 participants are well on their way to executing their eBay business plans. We caught up with Jonas for some of the details, found in the Q&A below.
What were the goals of the recent job creation and seller training program for blind participants?
As part of eBay’s partnership with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), we are hard at work on making all our products and pages accessible, as well as doing what eBay does best: creating entrepreneurial opportunities. In our recent seller training program for the blind, we were focused specifically on job creation. The unemployment rate in the blind community is over 70 percent, and eBay has a tremendous opportunity to make an impact by enabling entrepreneurs from this community to start selling on our site.
For our job creation program, we solicited applications in the form of business proposals, where members of the blind community outlined ideas that they could realize on eBay. We got hundreds of applications, and the NFB helped us identify 16 promising individuals to bring in for a four-day, intensive training session focused on selling and their business ideas.
The group members were from all over the U.S., partly because we would like them to eventually give back to and train other members of the blind community, in their respective areas, to become eBay sellers. We ultimately want this job creation program to become self-sustaining, and keep attracting more members of the community by showing how easy it is for anyone to start using the eBay platform.
What were some of the business ideas that were submitted?
There were some very interesting ones. Some of the 16 people we selected were focused on selling accessibility equipment — tools for use by blind people. We had one individual from California who is a remarkable magician. He has developed a line of products including magic cards, coins and the like that he would like to sell through an eBay business. I watched a number of his tricks, and tried to figure out how they were done, but he quickly lost me!
We had other people who were involved in sales-oriented pursuits previous to losing their eyesight, where blindness forced them to give up or severely cut back on selling. Several of these people have now learned to translate what they were doing to selling on eBay, which allows them to bring their businesses to a whole new platform. In short, eBay has opened a path for these individuals to pursue their passion, be it brand new, or lost due to their current abilities.
What was the actual training event like?
It was held at the NFB’s headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, over a span of four intensive days. The 16 participants were trained in an NFB computer lab where eBay education specialists who are long-term successful sellers worked with them. We had a targeted curriculum in place, based on the general training we offer to most eBay sellers, but adjusted it slightly to work well for this particular audience. For instance, since hours of slides and visuals aren’t easy to digest for someone who can only follow the training by using his/her hearing, our curriculum focused on hands-on examples using screen access software to create eBay listings.
Did the participants complete sales on eBay, and are any of them pursuing their business ideas further?
Yes. We went through the SYI (Sell Your Item) flow with them, and had everyone create listings. We went through the steps involved in getting good photos taken, including seeking assistance in those cases where the participants could not complete this step themselves. Going forward, providing the means for a visually impaired seller to provide quality photos unaided is going to be a formidable challenge. At the end of the first day, everyone had listed at least one item, and in many cases participants had several items listed.
Where is this program leading over time?
The first big milestone for the program will come in July, at the NFB’s national convention. By that time we hope to showcase a number of success stories from our 16 participants, and we aspire to have developed a way to scale this kind of training program so it can reach many more people without necessarily requiring on-site training. We want to be able to open it up to anyone from the blind community, and provide simple ways to access the resources needed to become a successful eBay seller.
One of our 16 participants is making rapid progress, and already has approximately 37 listings on eBay, averaging about three sales per week. We’re getting weekly updates from everyone in the initial group, and we’re working with the NFB to make this program self-sustaining.
You can find much more about eBay’s accessibility program and partnership with the NFB on The Hub, and guidelines for anyone needing accessibility assistance are also available through eBay.com.
We need everyone’s help in expanding the accessibility of eBay, so if you’re working on a new product or a product/page that has yet to receive an accessibility review, please contact Jonas Klink and Mark Lapole to help get you started. It’s as easy as that to make a huge difference for these users.